Read.

It makes sense that there would be a "bridge" species between fish and amphibian. I'm not sure what its modern-day homologue would be, though. Mudskipper, perhaps?


-Fox

Interesting...

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XL7 wuz here.

The batfish has both arms and legs! Sort of.
http://www.seascapesimages.com/subject/html/batfish.html

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MadQuack has a signature.

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Kids must be shot by Monday.

Honesty tests for workers can't be trusted, report says.

Psychopaths are unpredictable.

Jay Leno's Headlines > Everything

tanananananananah BATFISH!

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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

Hoorj for Batfish!

I'll have to take their word on that first article, looks like a guy holding a rock to me..

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"You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die." -Happy Endings [Margeret Atwood]
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Damnit Flexor!!!! You beat me to it!!!!

nethertheless, that fossil story is just... wierd.

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"Iraqniphobia - The fear of non-existant weapons of mass-destruction."

did they find the whole creature or just the arm-bone?

If it was just the bone, then how could they possibly know what the rest of the creature looked like? besides, their rendition makes it look much more like some sort of salamander creature than a fish.




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Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited April 04, 2004).]

If you look closely at the fish picture, you can see an outline of the rock on the fish's arm.

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MadQuack has a signature.

Hello Jacko!

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Titan A.E.

"The least they could do is kill my food before I eat it." - Cale

Although my name represents one of my favorite songs, in a way it also explains my actual person, a Cosmic Castaway!

Bull****e.

Some drunk guy was digging a hole and found a rock. He proceeds to proclaim it as the greatest find ever in the history of the universe. He sobers up the next day and has to come up with something to keep himself from looking like an *** .

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7

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

and no one will ever notice

Yeah, I wondered the same thing, how can someone look at a rock and go "It's a fish arm!"

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I can't think of anything to put here right now.

That's kind of the idea, seeing as salamanders are amphibians. There had to be a transition somewhere

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

Not only have you proven that you didn't read the article, but that you also have absolutely no understanding of archeology, or the various methods of how they dertermine the age and origin of bones.

Firstly, allow me to point out to you that fossilised rock and fossilised bone are completely different. Bone and rock have no similarities, whether fossilised or not, other than consisting of carbon.



I'm assuming that you don't know what these means, so I'll explain it to you like your a child.
A long, long time ago, Pennsylvania was covered in water! I know this is hard to believe, but theres proof! When it was covered in water, the bottom was made up of mud and rock. With these things called "currents" (the movement of water) and perhaps even such things as earthquakes and volcano's, new mud and rock is swept into the water! This new mud and rock slowly sinks to the bottom, and coveres the new mud and rock. Over millions and millions of years, as the planet changed, more and more new mud and rock were brought in to the water, and sunk to the bottom, creating more new layers of mud and rock at the bottom of the water. As the "tectonic plates" moved, the land was pushed up and moved, and the water went away, leaving the bottom of the ocean as the new land! Through further movement of wind and rain, even more new layers of mud and rock were added.

Now, when a prehistoric animal died (such as this tetrapod fossil), its bones are left in the ground. Because there were no people back then to pave cement walkways or build office blocks, there was nothing to move the bones. Because of this, during the process of the new sedimentry rock being layered, the bones would get stuck under the ground.


Now, when these guys in Pennsylvania were laying down this new road, they had to cut into the ground. When doing so, a bone was found in a rock. (Remember, bone is different to rock)
When it was analysed, scientists can do this nifty technique called carbon dating. This isn't taking carbon out to dinner and a movie - it's where scientists can find out how old something is. When they checked this with the layer of sedimentry rock it was found in, they realized it was when the land was covered in water. By relating this to perviously known dated information on found fossils, it was deduced that the creature the bone came from was alive, was before land walking animals. From this information, it can be assessed that the creature lived in the water. These scientists also can examine the bone fossil to discover where the bone came from in the animals body. This can be deduced from analyzing samples of other fossils, as well as modern day animals.


In conclusion, learn something about the topic you are going to claim to be "bull****", before making an *** out of yourself again.

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"When all else fails, eat pie."
-¬thoughts from beyond observance

IIRC you can't carbon date fossils because they've been squished under immense pressure and you're left with the impression of the bones in the rock.

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Fight like a Warlord

Either you don't know much about the process of carbon dating, or you're forgetting one imporant peice of information...
Go back to the news article. Look at the second picture. See what that guy is holding? Yeah, that'd be the bone that was found.

You'd be talking about things like footprints or such, where there isn't anything to be dated. In this case, they have an entire peice of bone.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they can date that.

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"When all else fails, eat pie."
-¬thoughts from beyond observance

The flaw in reasoning comes from when someone, like a creationist, argues that carbon-dating is flawed. When asked how it's flawed, they usually argue that it's because it can't give a proper age of the Earth.

... This is the point where I start to laugh, since you cannot carbon-date non-organic material, or material that is not organic in origin. Radiometric dating is preferable to dating non-organic rock anyway.


-Fox

I have not read your entire reply and will not, sorry to waste your time. I did however read the entire article and I do completely understand the methods of archaeology. Do not presume to tell me what I do and do not understand. I can only assume that by explaining things to people like they are children you are in fact trying to assert that you have the largest dick known to man. Nay, friend. It is not so. There is always someone with a bigger dick. I'm not quite sure what prompted you to attack me for my opinion, nor do I particularly care. It is interesting to note however, that if massassi was nazi germany online, you sir would be Hitler. I never liked Hitler, we didn't get along well. Now, back to my previous post. The topic of that article is, in fact, bull****e and I will continue to state this fact until the day I die. You can rot in a bucket if you like.





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You guys have the right idea, but the wrong test.


Carbon-14 dating is only good up to about 50,000 years. Potassium-Argon dating is the test most used for dating old rocks.



Ok, if you'd like to enlighten us as to how Potassium-Argon dating is a farce and doesn't work, or how Archaeology (the study of dead human-related things) applies to a dead fish, then please, go right ahead. I'd love to hear why you think its bull.

Personally, I rather think the discovery is kinda cool. Because it is another filled-in piece of the puzzle of what life was like back then.

Sources:
http://id-archserve.ucsb.edu/Anth3/Courseware/Chronology/09_Potassium_Argon_Dating.html
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/aucilla10_1/Carbon.htm

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Daddy, why doesn't this magnet pick up this floppy disk?

[This message has been edited by Axle (edited April 05, 2004).]

I'm pretty sure I completely failed to mention any sort of dating being bull****e, I did, however, completely succeed at saying that the article and it's "findings" were bull****e. I also apologize from the very depths of my soul for adding an A where it does NOT belong. May God have mercy on me.





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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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I don't explain things to people like they are children. I just explain things to YOU like you are a child. I come to this assumption, and also verify it, by the fact you make the statement that the article is "bull****e" (btw, that isn't a word), without adding any evidence to support your claims. And I find it quite childish that in retort you try to insult the size of my penis. I suppose you thought that was most clever, hmm? Nay, friend. It is not so. There is always someone more clever.
I am, however, unable to determine what premise you have derived your Hitler comment from. A rather obscure comment, which you have also shown not to provide and substantial grounds for. From this we can assess that you are simply being a tool.

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"When all else fails, eat pie."
-¬thoughts from beyond observance

[This message has been edited by Jin (edited April 05, 2004).]

Jin, poor Jin. That was the second time in one day you were referred to as a Nazi. Pretty bad, eh? I was unaware that I needed evidence to post my opinion, next time I shall remember that. Not that I will provide evidence, but I'll remember. If you feel the size of your penis has been insulted, you may want to think why this is. I simply said you do not have the largest one. Clever, No. Correct, yes. Odd you would come to the conclusion this is an insult. Why choose tool? I am not aware of being used by a more intelligent being for construction or deconstruction of anything. Therefore I must say that your usage of the word is incorrect. Remember, my dearest buddy Jin, that we all have our opinions and we are all entitled to share them. Mine is that the article is bull****e. I am saddened that you think this is not a word. Flartleboop is not a word. Bull****e is something I can say to convey a feeling which others will understand. Therefore, it is a word. You should really try getting off of that incredibly tall horse, it will hurt like hell when you eventually fall off.


Heil Hitler!

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Crimson. I'm confused as to why precisely you are talking here. Or more accurately, why you are asserting things so mockishly and arrogantly, without a single reason or supporting exposition. Repeated comments about penile size, and incessant un-backed 'bull****e' inclusions isn't really the best way to gain credibility.

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"If I said anything which implies that I think that we didn't do what we should have done given the choices we faced at the time, I shouldn't have said that." -William Jefferson Clinton
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That can be answered simply. I'm tired of the arrogant people on this forum that insult people on a regular basis simply because they do not agree with them. This forum is becoming worse and worse about that and I'm tired of it. Therefore I put my opinion out there and I will defend it exactly as it is attacked. I am allowed to have my opinion without giving "evidence" as to why I think that way. There is no more credibility at Massassi, there hasn't been for a while now.

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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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What a great idea!
I'm tired of cowardly people robbing old ladies. So maybe I'll go and rob them, too!


Oh, I'm arrogant alright, but at least I can back it up.

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"When all else fails, eat pie."
-¬thoughts from beyond observance

Crimson, yes you are allowed to have your opinion, but dont be surprised when others disagree and try to argue with you about it, especially when you fail to back it up.

Furthermore, the kind of attitude that you have displayed in this thread is unacceptable here. You fail to treat other posters with respect, yet you expect and demand that they treat you with the same respect which you fail to give. I find it ironic that you have a link to the forum rules in your sig, when you cant even follow those rules yourself.

Crimson especially, but also anyone else on this thread who posted an insult, should consider themselves warned.

PS: If Massassi was Nazi Germany, then Brian would be Hitler, not Jin.

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